Random rants, thoughts, reviews and braindumps from the Ranting Loon

Author: The Ranting Loon

So, I recently moved from WordPress to a Bluehost server. Because of this, if you’ve subscribed to me, it seems that the subscription didn’t move over properly. If you’re seeing this message, please be sure to go to www.therantingloon.com and subscribe to the new site, it has all the same content and everything, and I’ll still be reading everyone else’s posts and all, but this blog won’t be updated and instead therantingloon.com will be.

Have you ever wondered what might happen if you mixed the dark Magical Girl feeling of Madoka with the madcap not-quite-hentai of Love Hina, stuffed that in a school and added a dash of 11eyes just for good measure? No? Neither had I, but the end result is still pretty good.

I give you Trinity Seven, an anime currently in season in Japan and being simulcast to America through Crunchyroll. It’s a quirky little anime that I find balances the darkness of the situation and setting with the hilarity of a guy with zero filter to his mouth and body. I don’t want to spoil things too much, but the show is worth at least a quick view. Continue reading →

One of my friends and my mentor in this whole Blogging thing wrote a great article around a TED talk. You can find the post here, and I recommend checking it out. I’ll wait while you take in the post there, don’t worry.

There’s a bit of ironic humor to me in eating a Lean Cuisine for dinner and then finishing it off with a Klondike bar. Though, in all honestly, even with that, it’s likely less calories than your average “going out” meal anyway.

So, today was annoying. I never thought I’d reach a point where I felt like I was making too much money, but doing apartment searching with my budget and location, there’s a ton of places that are considered “low income” housing that is the PERFECT price, but I make just a hair over what they say I can make. So frustrating. Oh well, I’m going to keep looking, because I must or I become homeless. Wish me luck, dear readers.

I’m working on moving my host over to Bluehost to provide a bit more back end umph (as well as a custom e-mail address, yay!) but this means my site is likely to go down for a bit while I move. The URL is going to remain the same, http://www.rantingloon.com, just have to get the DNS propigated and the new site uploaded.

So, this morning I was a bit bored and figured I’d scan through the apps on my Android phone. After doing my morning mess on X-Men: Battle of the Atom and Tyrant Unleashed (I’m sure I’ll put up review for both of those later), I figured I’d check out those games I don’t typically play for one reason or another. Doing that, I ran across a game I downloaded actually three phones ago and just haven’t really gotten around to using: Survive! Japanese Lite.

As you may already know, I have a slightly more than passing interest in learning Japanese, both because I want to travel there, and because a number of games, anime and manga I want to play or read aren’t in English, so I can’t play or read them. The lite version of the game is technically a demo, the full version is currently $2.50, so be warned there also. That said, the game itself is pretty neat. The reason why I hadn’t played it previously is a silly one too: it has integrated voice queues, which are necessary to play (and kinda necessary to learn a language anyway, which is the goal of the game). Being that I typically do my cell phone games among the company of others, and I always forget my headphones, this is a problem.

Being home alone and bored, today, it was a different matter. So, I got to playing the game and within an hour, I ran out of demo, I’ll be honest there too. But at the same time, I find that the story so far is interesting, kinda reminds me of Broken Sword, if you’ve ever played that franchise, while the actions for learning the language are pretty neat, and adapt pretty well. It amuses me that how well you do on things helps determine your success. So, for example, if I sit in my airplane seat for take off, but I misspell the keyword “sit” once, I bump my head for comedic effect and become seated, instead of just sitting down.

Now, instead of most of my reviews, I have no yet beaten this game. I mention this because the comments do mention a few bugs. From what I can tell, some of them (blocked off areas) have to do with the narrative, rather than any actual bugs, as the game is fairly linear in regards to what you can do when you get to a particular stage. Honestly, I don’t see too much of a problem with that, as it is as much a story as it is a language learning program and less like a full game. I’d call it a visual novel, except there are no pictures, which is fine by me really, they’d just serve to distract from the core, which is learning katakana, hiragana and kanji as well as the spoken language of Japanese.

The game is also rather simple, but it is my opinion that this only helps the game not lose you to clutter and keeps you focused on the task at hand, while the narrative keeps you entertained even while you learn. I’m a huge fan of game-izing learning and tasks, which makes this one a gold star in my book.

In the end, if you’re looking to brush up your Japanese, or maybe pick it up on your own, at least take a look at the lite version. You might find it pretty handy, and the lite version is free.

It’s a really scary thing to realize that the job you’re currently working isn’t secure by any stretch of the imagination. Better to realize it now rather than when you’re given the pink slip, sure, but at least in my shoes, this means putting yourself out in dozens of applications, worried that lack of training here, or the fact that I chose a foray into hedonism instead of completing my degree (a fact I’ve regretted pretty much ever since I grew up enough to walk away from that lifestyle) puts me immediately out from being able to even be considered for what might otherwise be a dream job.

Case in point, I had a great lead for a job that is something I’ve been doing as a hobby (and semi-professionally, off the books) of working a computer help desk, assisting with installing things, both in hardware and software, basic maintenance of PC-type machines, etc. The rig I’m using currently is the first in a long while that I didn’t build myself, and even that has been upgraded by my hand with a new modem and graphics card. Alas, I am not A+ or Network + nor Microsoft certified, nor do I have a Bachelor’s degree in anything, let alone a tech field. so I do not qualify for the job.

In the end, it serves as a frustration, but also a reminder that just because I am closer to my midlife than I am to my highschool years that I shouldn’t stop learning and working on getting those certifications. I can’t change my past, but I can after all change my future and my present. So wish me luck while I fill out these forms and get back to studying for my varied certifications, etc. I’ll of course keep you posted.